Overdrive Quest: That Creamy Sound

[CortLegacy]

OK, so I'm on an overdrive quest. I'm trying to get some additions to my rig to give it a creamy overdrive, powerful, but not too much gain (think Brad Avery, Come Together Live).

My current rig is:

Guitar
Dunlop Wah
Bad Monkey
EH Small Stone
Danelectro Tuna Melt
Rocktron Tsunami
Matrix Stomp Tuner
Tech 21 TM60

I'm running my amp channels with a clean sound and more of a 4x12 Marshall on the second channel. The BM is set around 5 on the gain, to add a nice crunch to my clean or boost my leads.

Any suggestions on a good pedal to buy to get this creamy tone? Here are some I've been looking at:

Dyna Comp (or other compressor)
Screamin' Blues
Digitech Tone Driver
TS7 (has hot switch, and nice and creamy. Cheap)
DOD 250

CL

[Jaybo]

Isn't that the tone we're all looking for? :lol:

I dunno, with the Bad Monkey, a slightly dirty channel, and your neck pickup you should get in the territory.

I don't know much about the Tech 21 though.

[KOR]

First of all, Hi!
New to this board and glad to be here. I've been playing a lot of years and have solid state & tube amps. I've bought,sold, & dumped a lot of overdrive pedals. I found the Xotic BB Preamp pedal awesome. It's pricey but worth it. In the site I'm giving listen to the sound demos. Allen Hinds is great but give a listen to JP Cervoni. He demos it through a marshall on the clean and dirty channels. At the end he a/b's the pedal on & off.

http://www.prosoundcommunications.com/english/video/jp/index.html

Here are more demos

http://www.stevesmusiccenter.com/XoticBB.html

[stephen]

Any suggestions on a good pedal to buy to get this creamy tone? Here are some I've been looking at:


..........Screamin' Blues.........

Lil bro! Howyadoin!?

I do like that Screamin blues. I think it is a great little overdrive. I was half tempted to get it, and run it for a clean boost in conjunction with my TS808 Tube Screamer. But now I'm gonna get the Seymore Duncan Pick-up Booster.

There are a few around here that really like that Bad Monkey stomp you got. I think their might even be some mods for it too.........

I have found that your able to coax creamier sounding tone out of a big clean head room speaker, like an Eminence Tonker, or an EV12. If you go for a more british style speaker, like the Celestion vintage 30, it will not give you the clean headroom. This speaker will break up early.

With a Tonker or EV12, the break-up you hear is all amp (pushin your tubes into over-saturation). Mmmmm, Creamy! Then you can add whatever overdrive/distortion pedal you like the best.

I have also found that modulation pedals (phase or flange) seem to sound better with a clean headroom speaker.

Do you have your chain going like this: guitar, wah, small stone, tuna melt, tsunami, tuner, then into your tech 21? If so try this: go guitar, Bad Monkey, tsunami, tuna, small stone, tuner, wah, then into your amp. I find that if my guitar slams right into my OD, my other effects sound way better, both clean and crunch (with the OD). I put modulation at the end with the wah at the very end (of course if I have a volume pedal, that will go at the very end, after the wah).

I hope that helps, and doesnt confuse...........

[Surfcaster]

A good friend of mine has a TM60 and I always thought he got a nice creamy OD out of that by itself. What kind of guitar do you have...that and the pups in it might play into this as well.

As for pedals, I really like my MI Audio Crunch Box...very Marshally sounding and sounds great at any gain level...from just breaking up to way more than you'd probably ever use.

I'm sure the BB Preamp is great, too, but the Crunch Box is half the price.

[LesStrat]

The Bad Monkey is an amazing value.

I almost bought one, but I already have the SD Twin Tube Classic.

[MDK2323]

I'm a little late with this post, but I'd have to agree with Steven, the Tubescreamer is great for a creamy OD sound. That's why I bought the Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde OD pedal. It has 2 pedals in one, the TS808 sound on the green channel, and a heavier sound on the red channel. And when set right the 2 can be used together for a really fat high gain lead sound. I really dig this pedal because it isn't really gritty, it is quite smooth, and more of an overdrive than a distortion. It is perfect for me, it allows me to cover all the bases with our worship team.

[MDK2323]

One other thing that might help warm things up IMHO is switching to tube amps. I've heard good things about the TM60, but a good tube amp can really warm things up nicely.

I used to do the modeling amps and such, but I found that I couldn't hear myself as well on the platform, and the dynamics just weren't the same as a real amp, so I switched back and haven't second guessed myself. I have enough variety with changing between the 2 channels on the J&H OD and my pickup options to keep me more than satisfied.

I hope you find what you are looking for my friend.